If anyone wants to see a fairly simple workflow which involves setting a fairly simple color policy which provides transforms so that there are no noticeable color shifts then drop me a line.
Happy to do a zoom session and share tools and setups.
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The view transforms are quite problematic, unfortunately, because of their crazy dealing with bright lights in your scene. There will be a situation where this badly breaks your composite, so tread carefully.
Next time you do this, make sure you measure the brightest part of your scene before and after. You’ll see that Next time you do this, make sure you measure the brightest part of your scene before and after. You’ll see that view transforms view transforms can create astronomically and unintended bright areas of the frame which will wreak havoc with transparency, and blend modes.
Just saying, if you want to stay in Rec709 but have the comping benefits of linear, just and a colour management node, input transform into scene-linear/Rec709 when doing any comp operations that work better in linear such as blurs and additive functions such as lens flares, then transform back to stock standard Rec709 when you’re done (you copy your original colour management node and invert it after your operations are done). It means the gamut will remain the same and it is just the gamma that is changing.
We work in ACES but will convert to ACEScct or even camera original colour space to do certain operations such as colour grading, then change back again. We work on pre-graded media but that doesn’t really matter.
This whole discussion is a bit I use GMask instead of GMask Tracer because that’s what I’m used to and have always done it that way.
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100% @AdamArcher ! This is what I was saying above and I feel like people thought I was suggesting some headache inducing wild journey through the worlds of math and science! LOL
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All of this is understood. But when there are divergent voices saying that it will adversely affect gamut, etc., which has always been a presence in these discussions, it gives pause.
I don’t want to mess up my clients’ pixels.
Well, the easiest way to see who is right is add a colour transform to and from one of the suggested colourspaces then use a difference key to compare the source and result. Argument done & dusted. If there is no difference then there is no damage. Easy to test and see for yourself and then you can ignore everyone’s opinion because you can see for yourself.
Only caveat is you need to be doing it in at least 16bit float, which is what you should be working on in batch regardless.
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@GPM I can also understand why you are a bit wary about colour workflow advice. I have seen opinions regularly given on here that aren’t technically correct, such as suggestions that using log colour spaces in exrs is non-destructive (it is and has been proven elsewhere on Logic), so I can understand and appreciate why you are wary hence why I have made the difference key suggestion above. Takes opinions completely out of the picture.
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Yeah. Or I can just do as I’ve always done since Action lens flares were a thing and before Aces, output flares separately, and screen comp. It’s really the only time this comes up for me.
And that’s totally fine too!
I don’t think it is unreasonable to be able to ask for setting screen as the default blend mode for lens flares either. I’d argue that it should definitely be a user based option but generally I have found if there is a decent workaround (listed in the comments above) then the dev team may not have it as high on their priorities list.
Yeah, it’s not exactly a show stopper, just an annoyance that could be easily solved.
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I’m doing exactly this for my workflow right now. but instead of input transform, i use view transform so the color doesnt shift. wondering if this is wrong or both works?
Does your plate after the inversion difference matte cleanly with the original plate?
Measure the white values when you do it next. It’s somewhat contrary to the point of using a colorspace where math works.
We have actively shifted away from working on graded footage but when we do this is how I like to work also 
Going rogue for those rec.709 commercials 
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